A Study in Contrasts

IT'S OBVIOUS that the hot banker from Citibank who was fired for being too hot has hired a lawyer based solely on his ability to serve as a point of contrast to her hotness.



"And with her this morning is her lawyer. I don't know his name, but he is obviously half-man, half-toad. Welcome to both of you!"

Two additional things.

One: How many high-fives did the graphics department at CBS News slap after coming up with the "Sex and the Citi" graphic? At least twelve would be my guess.

Two: Listen to the "banker" speak. Listen to her words and sentences. Try to decipher not only what she is saying, but exactly what her accent is. Show your work.

Turn in your blue books at the front of the class and have a great summer!

Way To Go, You Guys

I DO SOME FREELANCE WORK FREQUENTLY at a television network known as NBC. Perhaps you've heard of it? Anyway, one of the fun things that happens, at least in Burbank (can't speak for the NBC in New York), is that you get to overhear the NBC Pages giving their tour spiel to tourists.

Normally, you hear the same five or ten things being said to the tourists, but recently I heard something I had never heard before. I think it was probably prompted by a question asked by the tour group. You see, at one point in the tour, the tourists are just feet from the NBC commissary. A place that must seem very special and magical to them, because they are not allowed to go there. Not even for an ice-cold beverage.

So, a couple weeks ago, I heard a page say this to a group. "Well, the commissary used to be part of the tour. Until one of you guys went up to one of the stars of Days of Our Lives and bugged her while she was eating. So, we can't go there anymore, because you guys screwed it up."

She kept saying "you guys" as if the people in the tour group were related to or somehow knew the transgressors of the story. Even if the story is true, it's not like it just happened. I've worked there off and on for the last six years and they've never allowed the tour groups into the commissary during that time. But the page in question was so testy with the tour group, as if it happened on her watch (which it couldn't have) or as if these tourists themselves had done it.

Or, better yet, as if "tourists" were a separate class of people (from Gran Tourismo maybe) that had to be punished as a group, like preschoolers who wouldn't settle down. And now nobody got to have Fruit Cup Time.

Way to go, you guys! Good one! Way to ruin it for everyone else!

And.....Scene!

WELCOME BACK, MY FRIENDS, TO THE SHOW THAT NEVER ENDS! Only this time the show does end. And when I say "the show" I mean The Megan Mullally Show. As of today, we have stopped production. Ah well, we gave it a shot, right? It was a good ride, but now we move on to other things. Maybe in the future I'll post some of the taped comedy pieces I directed on this site.

If I can figure out how to do such a thing, that is.

Simpsons Wisdom

I WAS LAID OFF from my job today. When I got back home, still a little stunned (but not necessarily upset or saddened), I looked at my Simpsons page-a-day calendar. For December 5, it shows a picture of Mrs. Krabapple, Bart's teacher, and she's saying, "Now, I don't want you to worry, class. These tests will have no effect on your grades. They merely determine your future social status and financial success. If any."

I had to laugh at the "determine your future social status and financial success...if any" part.

This is the second apropos page-a-day moment for the Simpsons calendar. Back on March 19, a girl I had a crush on (and who seemed to be giving me very positive signs for the previous two weeks) phoned me to tell me that if I was thinking there was anything between us of a romantic nature that I was misguided, oh so misguided.

On that day, the calendar page featured Kent Brockman saying, "This just in: Go to hell!"

Both were so perfect that I taped them to my mirror, where they still reside today.